What does the Lord ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.~ Micah 6 : 8
“My thoughts are not like your thoughts. And your ways are not like my ways,” announces the Lord. “The heavens are higher than the earth. And my ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55 : 8 – 9
Brokenness and loss of trust in leaders- political, business, media, health, education and sadly, so often, the police- is tearing us apart. When trust is broken and discrimination and injustice becomes appallingly ‘commonplace’, when daily survival is precarious, then fear and division flourish.
Jesus, Light of the World, pierce the darkness of our world and of our understanding.
For many there is the added trauma of grieving, not only the loss of loved ones while separated by ‘social distancing’, but having that loss compounded by bigotry, racism and injustice. Pain, frustration and anger become overwhelming. Words are clumsy tools at times like this, but let us meet the Christ within – in the still center in each of us where you tell us that the kingdom of God already is…
Jesus, Light of the World, come in your loving compassion; pierce the darkness of our world and of our understanding.
We celebrate and give thanks for those people – often of color and of many ethnicities- who confront this evil with strength, offering the transformative way through a firm, unswerving stand for justice, truth, love and mercy. They remind us that we are all one family created from God’s loving heart, and while giving us free will, longs for us to choose to return and follow the Divine way, not our way.
We remember with thanksgiving Patrick Hutchinson, a black personal trainer in London, UK who, with friends forming a barrier, rescued an English Defense League white protestor from possible death after being abandoned by his EDL colleagues in a counter-protest to Black Lives Matter. We remember the leaders of the Diné people (Navajo) in the USA, providing interventions and raising the profile of so many First Nation and Indigenous peoples suffering not only disproportionately during the Covid-19 pandemic but from systemic marginalization and injustice including arrest and deaths in custody. This is a worldwide evil also present in the nations of Australia, Zimbabwe, Chechnya and Amazonia in South America. We give thanks for the wise leadership offered this week by the Dalai Lama in exile and lockdown in India where Covid-19 is prevalent.
Jesus, Light of the World, heal our selfishness and help us reset our values to where each one of us truly looks out for one other as one human family under God.
Help us to dare to travel the road to a new way of living in your Light and and be open to the promptings of your Holy Spirit.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me;
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Spirit of the Living God, move among us all;
Make us one in heart and mind, make us one in love.
Humble, caring, selfless, sharing –
Spirit of the living God, move among us all.
Daniel Iverson
Hear us, loving, living God, as we pray from the depths of our broken hearts. Amen and amen
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